AIIB explores digital payments, eyes Hong Kong hub as it raises record funds The Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) is setting its sights on tokenised payments and digital settlement systems, tapping into Hong Kong’s growing digital finance ecosystem as part of a broader push to modernise its capital market operations, according to a senior official at the bank. “That is a sector that we are exploring with interest,” Domenico Nardelli, the AIIB’s treasurer and acting chief financial officer, told the South China Morning Post in an interview last week, referencing emerging financial technologies such as digital payments and tokenised settlement. The Beijing-headquartered multilateral development bank wants “to understand if there are applications that are portable into the treasury space,” he added. The interest comes as the institution aggressively scales up its global fundraising capacity. After raising the equivalent of US$10 billion in each of the past two years, the AIIB is targeting a record US$11 billion this year. Coinciding with this fundraising drive are plans to open a hub in Hong Kong before the end of the year – marking its second office outside mainland China following the launch of its Abu Dhabi hub two years ago. Establishing a physical presence in the city will place the bank at the centre of Asia’s fast-maturing digital asset market, bringing it closer to both regional clients and global pools of liquidity, Nardelli said. Hong Kong has been steadily expanding its digital asset offerings and deepening links with regional digital financial hubs, reinforcing its position as a major financial technology centre. Last month, the city approved its first “digitally native” tokenised fund, allowing professional investors to hold direct ownership of underlying assets on a public blockchain. Financial authorities have also pledged to roll out a new digital asset platform this year to support the issuance and settlement of tokenised bonds, moving tokenisation from experimental pilots into core market infrastructure. “We will have better ability to cover the Hong Kong dollar market, but also other currencies, because there are many offshore investors who are based in Hong Kong,” Nardelli said. The AIIB is no stranger to the city’s bond market. Earlier this year, it issued a HK$4 billion (US$510 million) three-year sustainable development bond, its second issuance in the local public bond market following a debut sale in February 2025. Despite its ambitious expansion, Nardelli cautioned that geopolitical tensions remained the primary headwind for the bank’s capital market outlook, given the risk of elevated oil prices, rising inflation and distorted US dollar yield curves – the main market for multilateral development bank funding. In response, AIIB has approved a dedicated financing facility to support member countries facing severe economic disruptions, particularly around food and energy security stemming from the conflict in the Middle East. “We need to understand the mood of investors, their concerns, and how they are prepared to continue deploying capital,” he said. Notwithstanding the macroeconomic uncertainty, Nardelli expressed confidence in the bank’s ability to capture untapped global liquidity through the new Hong Kong hub and a broader, more diversified range of debt instruments. “I still think we have not maximised our reach to the global investor space,” he said, acknowledging that longer-established peer development institutions still enjoy broader name recognition. By 2025, the AIIB had disbursed over US$38.4 billion in financing across diverse infrastructure sectors – including energy, digital infrastructure and education – according to an impact report released by the bank in July. Following consecutive years of strong fundraising performance, Nardelli said the bank would continue to broaden its investor base and attract portfolio managers willing to actively trade its debt. “We’ve been closing the gap,” he noted. https://www.scmp.com/business/banking-finance/article/3362580/aiib-explores-digital-payments-eyes-hong-kong-hub-it-raises-record-funds?pgtype=live (ICE HONG KONG)

Fonte notizia: South China Morning Post